Bahrain Takes the Stage With a Raucous Protest

Published: February 15, 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain — Thousands of protesters poured into this nation’s symbolic center, Pearl Square, late Tuesday in a raucous rally that again demonstrated the power of popular movements that are transforming the political landscape of the Middle East.

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Demonstrators in Bahrain carried defaced posters of the king and the crown prince on Tuesday. More Photos »

In a matter of hours, this small, strategically important monarchy experienced the now familiar sequence of events that has rocked the Arab world. What started as an online call for a “Day of Rage” progressed within 24 hours to an exuberant group of demonstrators, cheering, waving flags, setting up tents and taking over the grassy traffic circle beneath the towering monument of a pearl in the heart of Manama, the capital.

The crowd grew bolder as it grew larger, and as in Tunisia and Egypt, modest concessions from the government only raised expectations among the protesters, who by day’s end were talking about tearing the whole system down, monarchy and all.

Then as momentum built up behind the protests on Tuesday, the 18 members of Parliament from the Islamic National Accord Association, the traditional opposition, announced that they were suspending participation in the legislature.

The mood of exhilaration stood in marked contrast to a day that began in sorrow and violence, when mourners who had gathered to bury a young man killed the night before by the police clashed again with the security forces.

In that melee, a second young man was killed, also by the police.

“We are going to get our demands,” said Hussein Ramadan, 32, a political activist and organizer who helped lead the crowds from the burial site to Pearl Square. “The people are angry, but we will control our anger, we will not burn a single tire or throw a single rock. We will not go home until we succeed. They want us to be violent. We will not.”

Bahrain is best known as a Persian Gulf base for the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet and as a playground for residents of Saudi Arabia who can drive over a causeway to enjoy the nightclubs and bars of the far more permissive kingdom. Its ruler, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is an important ally of the United States in fighting terrorism and countering Iranian influence in the region.

It is far too soon to tell where Bahrain’s popular political uprising will go. The demands are economic — people want jobs — as well as political, in that most would like to see the nation transformed from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional one. But the events here, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, have altered the dynamics in a nation where political expression has long been tamed by harsh police tactics and prison terms.

In a rare speech to the nation, the king expressed his regret on national television over the two young men killed by the police and called for an investigation into the deaths. But in an unparalleled move he also instructed his police force to allow more than 10,000 demonstrators to claim Pearl Square as their own.

As night fell Tuesday and a cold wind blew off the Persian Gulf, thousands of demonstrators occupied the square or watched from a highway overpass, cheering. Where a day earlier the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at any gatherings that tried to protest, no matter how small, or peaceful, people now waved the red and white flag of Bahrain, gave speeches, chanted slogans and shared food.

The police massed on the other side of a bridge leading to the square. A police helicopter never stopped circling, but took no action, to the protesters’ surprise.

By 10 p.m., many of the people headed home from the square, with many saying they had plans to return the next day. A core group planned to spend the night there in tents.

“Now the people are the real players, not the government, not the opposition,” said Matar Ibrahim Matar, 34, an opposition member of Parliament who joined the crowd gathered beneath the mammoth statue. “I don’t think anyone expected this, not the government, not us.”